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| Our beloved "Bruno" |
When I wrote a song about our '91 campaign, I initially thought Gary Gaetti was still with us. Wrong-O. I discovered in my usual fact-checking that Gaetti moved on, no longer holding down our "hot corner." I reminded my barber Dave that Mike Pagliarulo was a key third baseman for us in '91. "I forgot about him," Dave said. Time can draw a misty curtain.
We might also remember that Scott Leius logged some important time at third that season. I assume it was a platoon arrangement. The lefty always gets more plate appearances in a platoon system. One-time Twins manager Gene Mauch drove me nuts because I felt he got carried away with platooning. I remember Lyman Bostock complaining publicly about being sat down one day against a left-handed pitcher.
Please refresh your memories about Lyman: he was a prodigy type of young player for the Twins at a time when owner Calvin had increasing trouble affording such players. Bostock moved on to the Angels and could be in the Hall of Fame had he not been murdered.
Ah, "Bruno"
We associate Tom Brunansky with the Twins of that heyday period of the late '80s. But as with Gaetti, we might easily forget that "Bruno" was with our team for just one of those championship years. Gaetti and "Bruno" were together for that fairy tale-like season of 1987. The Twins surprised everyone. Only a few years earlier, the Twins seemed genuinely out of favor with much of the state's populace, really. The big league owners truly understood the vagaries of their customers - they just know when a certain franchise needs to be jump-started.
The owners knew that the Twins needed a new venue back around 1980. I find it profoundly sad reflecting on the last few years of our Metropolitan Stadium in the Twin Cities suburbs, that "castle on the plains" as I refer to it in some of my song lyrics. I find it sad because Metropolitan Stadium transformed life in our state at the time it was built. It literally brought big league sports here. Instead of being grateful, within a short 20 years us Minnesotans seemed to be shrugging off the old Met, definitely for baseball. Yes we were enthralled by the football Vikings. And yes we loved the novelty or fad of Minnesota Kicks soccer, which demonstrated simply that Minnesotans were ready for more entertainment options.
We thrashed around looking for such options. The "Carlton Celebrity Room" ended up getting mocked (at least in my interpretation) in the movie "Fargo." The movie was a broad parody on a whole lot. One of the bad guys took his hooker date to the Carlton Celebrity Room, remember? Trivia: who was the singer featured that night? It was Jose Feliciano.
More trivia: Feliciano in the late '60s was perhaps the first "name" singer to perform the Star Spangled Banner in an edgy manner, fomenting some controversy, which looks ridiculous today. Oh, but the late '60s had quite the different cultural air with the Lawrence Welk generation still holding forth. Us young people heard "America, love it or leave it," and many of us were prepared to leave if the alternative was to honor our military draft notice.
Today the National Anthem can be quite the cultural flashpoint with sports. Sometimes musical performers get attention for simply screwing up with the hard-to-perform song. The vocal range is way too wide. But no longer is there any controversy with a performer simply doing it by contemporary popular standards.
Oh, think of the movie "Moneyball!" We hear the National Anthem performed rock guitar style as a bunch of older people unfurl Old Glory out on the middle of the field. The performance totally "rocks" but so what? On the field we see the typical older men wearing suits, ties and American Legion hats, and they totally accept the musician's interpretation. The performance would have been scandalous if done before a World Series game in the late '60s. Remember, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., lionized by all today, was considered subversive in many quarters back in his time, due to being an early critic of the Vietnam war.
Here's a classic "what if" re. history, the most intriguing "what if" I can think of: What if Billy Graham had called a sudden press conference in 1967 or '68 to state strongly that the Vietnam war was immoral and we needed to get our young men out of there. What if?
"Say it ain't so" after trade
Tom Brunansky was traded by the Twins after '87 to the team we had just beaten in the World Series: St. Louis. So it seemed strange seeing the big guy in that Cardinal red so soon. One day when "Bruno" got a key RBI for St. Louis, Chris Berman of ESPN gave a robust pronunciation of "Bruno" with elan. It tugged at my heartstrings.
"Bruno" had a role in 1987 that I would compare with Bob Allison of our 1960s Twins. Both were outfielders. Both had power but not in an overwhelming way. They were secondary stars. Still they are lodged in our collective memory.
Ah, "Bruno." He hit the game-winning home run in the only game I personally attended in the '87 stretch drive. Twins mania had fully set in. Seems that me and my friend, high school classmate Art Cruze, got two of the few remaining tickets that were left that day. We sat way up in the furthest-back seats. But we had a blast. Our starting pitcher was Mike Smithson who was being sent out to the mound on a wing and a prayer, because he was in decline at that point. Just think of the "Hellman" character in the movie "Angels in the Outfield."
Bob Casey announced Smithson's name with great enthusiasm like he was trying to inject a little extra dose of optimism. I recall Smithson pitching good enough to help us to victory, with "Bruno" giving the exclamation point at the end with his home run.
Attitudes altered over time
I had emotional attachment to the Twins up through 1993. It was never the same after that, never, because the players strike of 1994 damaged my outlook. I learned to live without baseball, to go through "withdrawal" as it were. I remember a syndicated cartoon where one guy says to another: "Think of all the time we wasted when we could have been watching baseball." Humorists penetrate our pretenses so well.
I'm probably a better person for having severed my personal enthusiasm for baseball. I don't get dragged into the arcane "baseball analytics" of today. Occasionally I'll experiment with trying to be interested in the Twins again. However, I fail to get to first base, as it were - it's not even close. A televised game is like watching paint dry, IMHO.
Dick Bremer must be on the verge of going nuts as he gets so consumed with analyzing every day's game, all the fine detail. Give me good ol' Halsey Hall and the simple, lively banter he shared. What would Halsey have said about "analytics?" He'd just want to light up another cigar. A toast to him.
I have written a song about Tom Brunansky of the 1987 Minnesota Twins. It's a song with 'A' and 'B' sections set up as follows: AABA-instrumental-BAA. It has a pulsating rhythm. Enjoy the memories from the pre-strike period of joy in baseball!
Oh! I neglected to say how Minnesotans got their increased appetite for entertainment finally satiated. Drum roll. . . Casinos! So much for gambling being immoral.
"Tom Brunansky"
by Brian Williams
Tom Brunansky
Was a Twins fiend
With his big swing
He was something
When the Twins won
He was handsome
And watch those homer hankies wave
Tom Brunansky
Made us happy
In the days when
We loved Reagan
Bruno wowed us
With his prowess
And watch those homer hankies wave
BRIDGE:
Was it all a fairy tale
Or something that was true?
Twins on top for all the world to see
Just like in the heady days
Of Harmon Killebrew
We were so enamored with our team
Tom Brunansky
Pushed our big dream
Of the big prize
We were wide-eyed
Yes it happened
In the northland
And watch those homer hankies wave
(instrumental interlude)
(repeat bridge)
Tom Brunansky
Sitting pretty
In the five spot
In the lineup
Such a good bet
In the home stretch
And watch those homer hankies wave
Tom Brunansky
Had us home free
Past our rivals
Like the Royals
We just sat there
Rarefied air
And watch those homer hankies wave
TAG-ON AT END:
We got those memories to save
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
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